WND

Who knew? Alice Cooper and Glen Campbell were best friends

United by Christian faith that rescued them from 'alcohol and drug world'

Art Moore, co-author of the best-selling book "See Something, Say Nothing," entered the media world as a PR assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master's degree in communications from Wheaton College.

Campbell died Aug. 8 at a long-term care facility in Nashville after a six-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Glen and I are of the same faith. We’re both Christian. I know where he is now, and I know that he’s in a perfect place,” Cooper said.

Cooper, who describes himself as a “Prodigal Son” who returned to faith later in life, said they both survived the “alcohol and drug world” of the entertainment capital at its worst, during “what we called the L.A. blizzard, when everybody was into cocaine.”

“But he had a real problem with it,” Cooper said of Campbell.

“He navigated through that. I navigated through that. We both came out the other end with great families. We both came out sober. We both became Christian. We both understood where we were. And that’s what we had in common, is that we were survivors of that world.”

Both also moved from Los Angeles to Phoenix, he noted, “to get away from that world.”

Campbell sold 45 million records over a 50-year career in show business, racking up 12 gold albums and placing 80 songs on the hit charts, including 29 in the top ten, of which nine reached No. 1.

Raised in the Baptist Church of Christ denomination, Campbell said in a 2008 interview that he and his wife, Kim, had been worshipping weekly with a Messianic Jewish congregation for two decades, celebrating both Jewish holidays and Christmas.

Cooper, born Vincent Damon Furnier, said in a 2009 interview about his Christian roots for “The Harvest Show” TV program that as a youth, he did missionary work with his evangelist father with Apache tribe members in Arizona before becoming a Prodigal in the entertainment world in the 1970s and ’80s. Cooper said he attended Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona, which he described as “a good strong Bible-teaching church.”

‘It was unique’

Cooper said many may not be aware of the respect people in the rock-and-roll world had for Campbell’s prowess with the guitar.

“People like Eddie Van Halen one time said, ‘Can you get me a guitar lesson with Glen?’ And most rockers would go, ‘What?'” Cooper recalled.

Alice Cooper talks to KSAZ-TV in Phoenix

“That’s the kind of guitar player he was. He was considered one of the five best guitar players out there.”

Cooper said their families were “very tight,” and their children grew up together.

“It was unique. I was so far away from him in music, the character of Alice Cooper. And he was so far into the middle, mainstream rock and roll. He could hang out with the Rat Pack or he could hang out with Donnie and Marie. Or he could hang out with the Beatles, or anybody. He was in that middle. He was the all purpose, good-looking kid that could do anything. He was the golden boy,” Cooper said.

They shared a passion for golf, playing once or twice a week when Campbell was in Phoenix.